Speaking at a media event for Santander in Barcelona on Monday, the Ferrari duo accept that they do not have the fastest car, but also made it clear they have seen nothing yet that proves they will not be able to fight for the victory in Australia.

What we learned from the final F1 test

Zitat"It is difficult to judge rivals - it's impossible," said Alonso. "You cannot go to the training grounds of Barcelona football club and see if they will win Sunday's match â as they are only warming up.

"I don't think by seeing Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic warming up you will see who will win the game. We will see in Australia.

"We should not forget the goal we have, and we should not forget the 0.7-0.8 seconds gap we had to the rest at the end of last year.

"But we can be closer to Red Bull and McLaren, who will be the strongest this season."

Where does Alonso come up with these numbers? Maybe they were that far off in qualifying. but in the races?! " title="roll" />

Kimi's nephews Justus and Tiitus came to follow Kimi's driving in Barcelona and they finally got to see from close what Lotus-team's testing day is like togther with their Rami-dad.

Kimi RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen's voice is still rustling from the illness and his cheeks are pale red... The Finn seems to be troubled by hardships just like his Lotus-car is.

â Don't ask how I feel. We are okay - both car and driver. If we have to face these problems then it's better to face them now and not after a few days in Australia, Kimi said.

I got to interview Kimi while he was preparing himself for an evening flight together with his brother and his nephews. Kimi is on a business trip to France on Monday.

RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen had time to drive 540 km in Jerez and 580 km in Barcelona - and be sick in the hotel for one day.

â I don't think that anything would change in the first race even if we had scrubbed the track for thousands of kilometers like sometimes earlier when there was a lot more testing. We got to drive the new car enough to learn it, so it's going to be neat when we get to the first race.

â Of course one would hope that there wouldn't be any problems in testing. When you have had them you can never be really sure that they don't happen again. On the other hand we solved the problems so we are starting the season with a trustful mind.

The loose hose cost hours

RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen's last testing day stopped right after morning preparations into one trial lap.

â It had the same problem it had in earlier tests also. The hose in the gearbox got loose and when that happens the whole thing has to be taken apart. The whole gearbox has to be taken out of the car and once that was done it got some other flaw too and then the mechanics had to take it out one more time.

â It cost us a lot of driving hours, just like last week also, RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen said.

Then what does Kimi think about the experiences he got from the winter tests?

â There have been better winters, and hopefully the first races go better than the tests and with less hardships. Now the last day also started badly but in the end the car felt good again.

â The reliability-department wasn't the best, but in the final games those flaws have still been quite small even if they have taken up lot of driving time.

RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen has succeeded in Australia. Now he has put in an order so he could get an opening race with better positions than last year when he finished 7th.

â It's really bad to say anything about the season yet, there are so big question marks. If we get these new tires to work there then all is well, but if we get troubles with them we can expect difficulties.

An order of a good start put in

Kimi has emphasized all the time that it's useless to draw any conclusions until the qualification in Australia.

â The laptimes depend so much upon the fuel loads. One would assume that all top teams go for the championship but who can do that is another thing.

Does Kimi believe that he has now better chances to fight for the WDC than he had last season?

â Hopefully that's the case, but it's tricky to tell anything based upon the tests. If someone has drove with for example 20 kg more or less fuel, then the result sheet looks quite different.

â It would be important to get a good start to the season. If you are immediately left far behind others it's difficult to close the gap, RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen emphasized.

Next weekend starts the 64th F1-sport championship season. At this stage, it appears that this is not a year for a new champion because the strongest candidates have already been awarded the championship at least once.

The Formula one expert of Turun Sanomat Heikki Kulta points out that the opening of the Australian Grand Prix shouldnât be used as a base for this years championship speculations. The Albert Park track will give so many surprises that you should be prepared for those.

According to forecasts the weather is relatively cool and most likely to be rainy during this next weekend. Itâs likely to mix up things at the track, even though the winter tests that the teams have made is giving some important information of the new tires, rain and cold weather.

The Finnish people are hoping that the winner will be Kimi RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen from the Lotus-team. Kimi does drive a very fast car despite the difficulties he was having during the winter tests.

Valtteri Bottas is starting his own Formula one career and is trying to get some points with Williams-team during his debut.

Kimi RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen's mom Paula RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen describes her son as a stubborn competitor.

She remembers that Kimi always wanted to race for the victory.

â Kimi has always had an absurd will to win and he never gives in. When he started to race as a child he turned the steering wheel for as long as the tires were rolling. I believe that it's Finnish Sisu, the will to fight, guts, Paula RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen says in Lotus-team's preview.

Kimi's parents got a hunch of their son's talent when Kimi was racing junior races in karting at the age of 10.

â One racer's dad who was an experienced mechanic came to ask about Kimi: "Who is that boy in car number 104". Closest people, like parents, rarely notice these things themself, Paula RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen said.

ZitatThe co-operation between RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen and Slade means a little talk and a lot of results

F1 | Turun Sanomat 00:46

Mark Slade has experienced a lot being a race engineer for Mika HĂ€kkinen, Kimi RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen, Fernando Alonso, Heikki Kovalainen, Vitali Petrov, Michael Schumacher - and now he is once again RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen's closest working mate.

Last season RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen shut up his other race engineer Simon Rennie with his famous slogan: Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing.

In the winter Rennie went to Red Bull to work as Mark Webber's race engineer, whereas Slade continues aside RĂ€ikkĂ¶nen.

â Simon took care of communicating with Kimi in qualification and race, whereas I was in charge of the engineering work upto the final third practice. Now I also do Simon's job, so in a way we are going back to how things were in McLaren, Slade explains.

How surprised were you over the âLeave Me Aloneâ -fuss?

â Surprised? I'm used to it because I know that Kimi never likes people to talk to him when he sits in the car concentrating on heated racing situations. The only unusual thing was that the exchange of words was shown on tv and the big audience heard it for the first time, Slade said.

How different are drivers when it comes to communication?

â Some want a huge amount of information, some want less and Kimi is the other extreme with his "leave me alone".

â Drivers who have worked with me have all been good in building the car, they have been committed in developing the car and they have said their opinion of what they want and the work has been done together.

â Mika HĂ€kkinen wasn't very enthusiastic when he was talked to during a race either, so in that sense he was similar to Kimi. We worked the same way with Heikki Kovalainen as we worked with other Finns. He was very young back then and might had expected something different. In Renault he got more information while driving and would probably had wished for more information about some changes made to the car, Slade remembers his Finnish boys.

â I also think that Fernando Alonso would have wanted more talking in the radio, but since my previous drivers never wanted it I didn't completely comprehend his needs. If I could use a time machine and go back, then I would act differently with Fernando and talk more.

â Michael Schumacher showed it to me and he immediately made clear that he wants all the information from me during the whole time, Slade commented on his short experience in Mercedes.

my compatriot Nikolas Tombazis ( Ferrari ) seems not to be very fond of Adrian Newey (RBR )...in an interview to Autosprint he said: "We're different. We (at Ferrari) do not have someone who knows or thinks he knows everything, and treats everybody else as his slave....and later: from a technical point of view, its difficult not to admire Adrian Newey, but from a human point of view i know many other people....

We are looking to fill an Aerodynamicist position within the CFD department at LRGP.

The CFD Aerodynamicist will be responsible for aerodynamic development of the car using CFD to pursuing current directions and investigating new concepts.

The position allows a significant amount of freedom, both in terms of development in CFD but also specifying tunnel programmes, and hence the successful applicant will be required to demonstrate a high level of creativity and motivation.

A strong aeronautical or mechanical engineering degree with an excellent understanding of aerodynamic and CFD theories are prerequisites. F1 external aerodynamic development experience in CFD or experimental testing would be a clear advantage.

ZitatWe live in strange times. Austerity is the necessary norm while stock markets boom, bankers are despised, currencies fluctuate wildly; and tax, tax, and tax some more is the battle cry of the bien-pensant bourgeois left, so consumed by their politics of envy. Money is tight, budgets ever trimmed, a reflection of the mood.

Whatâs this got to do with Formula 1?

Well, our sport is a luxury. A multi-billion-dollar entertainment behemoth played out on the global stage, in so many ways the play-thing of the ĂŒber rich â be they blue chip brands or multi-millionaire team benefactors. All are 100 per cent reliant on the worldâs economic outlook.

And that outlook is possibly the most challenging, confusing and uncertain itâs been since the 1930s.

When was the last time the number of planned grands prix in a year dropped relative to the previous seasonâs count? As I write it is just days since the 2013 calendar was finally confirmed, since Turkey, Portugal, France et al proved themselves unwilling or unable to be the never-seriously-likely-to-happen and subsequently cancelled New Jersey eventâs replacement.

At some point over the past several months grand prix stalwart countries Germany, Spain and Belgium have all appeared less than sure about their racesâ futures, reflecting both global commercial realities and the daunting economies of scale faced by circuits staging Formula 1 events.

Sure, not all is gloom and doom. UPS are newly on the Ferraris, Infinitiâs purple sparkles on the Red Bulls and Williams have announced an Expirian deal but â save for a few minor deals elsewhere â for the teams, thatâs just about it.

Red Bull is an interesting case. Can it really be healthy for any sport to be so dominated by a multi-national marketing company?

Two teams that suck-in big sponsors, Six world titles in three years. A reputedly significant say in the way the sport is heading, dismissive of the Resource Restriction Agreement, and they even have a car manufacturer sponsor their team. Call me old-fashioned but shouldnât car companies be in the driving seat rather than merely a source of revenue for a drinks manufacturerâs racing activities?

This is not healthy and is surely the wrong way around. When the monkey starts to control the organ, any sport needs to have a serious look at where things are headed.

In a recent conversation, a respected management consultant with a lot of F1 experience opined to me that âF1 is surrounded by quicksandâ. His words echo those of a CMO at a major brand with a long F1 history (but no present involvement) who said, âF1 lost its appeal to many major sponsors when a marketing company [Red Bull] was allowed into the sport and then started to dominate it.â He believes F1 should always be âdrivenâ from the top by car manufacturers and likened the whole series now to a âmarketing exerciseâ.

Donât get me wrong, Red Bull do a fantastic job and have â both on and off the track â raised the bar to such levels that many of their competitors in racing and marketing are left scratching their heads. Itâs the sport as a whole, and their possibly overly strong position within it, that concerns.

Commercial rights supremo Bernie Ecclestone is no doubt very pleased to welcome major new partner Rolex to the show. The Swiss timekeeper joins recent arrivals Emirates, UBS, LG and Tata in pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into âhisâ sport. Trouble is, 40 per cent of that revenue flows straight out of Formula 1 to a third party in the shape of private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.

While itâs good to have so many blue riband commercial heavyweights signing up to be associated with F1 as a whole, itâs not so good for the people who build the cars. Maybe Bernieâs money men are just doing a better job, maybe not, but the result of a number of the big fish in an ever-shrinking pond choosing the âumbrella brandâ is that the teams are having to find funds from elsewhere â hence the rise of the pay driver.

Sergio âChecoâ Perez may be in McLarenâs eyes the coming man, but one suspects a fair proportion of that thinking is influenced by the young Mexicanâs rich benefactor, Carlos Slim Jr, the handsome heir to the Telmex billions and son of the richest man on earth. Technically, of course, Checo â who is paid by the team â is not a pay driver as such. Even so, given McLarenâs record of employing the best of the best, and the imminent departure of Vodafone as their title sponsor, there must be an ulterior motive here. Any Formula 1 team, let alone one of the very top drawer outfits, canât really afford to let a significant and valuable piece of racing car real estate go for free for too long; note that the rear wings of the MP4-28s are emblazoned with the logo of McLarenâs in-house cartoon venture âToonedâ, as those of last yearâs MP4-27s were.

And whatâs happening at Williams? Sure the Didcot outfit has a welcome cash injection from Expirian but we may still have the worrying situation where the very future of one of the most respected teams on the grid could be affected by the death of a political leader. Recently deceased Venezuelan president Hugo ChĂĄvez personally approved state oil company PDVSAâs backing â to the tune of ÂŁ29m a year â of national hero Pastor Maldonado. Since the opposition political parties are making far from supportive comments regarding the money flowing to F1 from a country with such endemic poverty, the results of the soon-to-be-staged election could bring an end to this revenue stream which is so vital not just to the driver but also to the team.

In so many ways Formula 1 is at a crossroads. Bernie still runs the show but with endless speculation regarding his desire for a legacy â and the matter of who will take over when Mr E exits to run that race track in the sky â potential sponsors, manufacturers, circuits, promoters, et al, are wary of taking the plunge.

F1 has long lived in a bubble, seemingly protected, ignorant and/or dismissive of commercial realities in the ârealâ world.

ZitatFormula Sochi, the organiser behind Russiaâs bid to join the Formula calendar, has reportedly gone bankrupt.The new circuit designed by Hermann Tilke is being constructed in preparation to host a round of the F1 World Championship next year.It is understood that the promoter and circuit builder Omega will take over preparations and see the project through to its end goal.The 5.95km circuit is being built in a precinct that will include venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics.Last month F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone visited the circuit at a time when he also met with Russian president Vladimir Putin.The circuit is located in the Krasnodar region of Russia on the Kuban river about 148km from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

technically speaking when something is built in Russia with state money it means that money will be stolen. it is as correct as 2+2=4.

Anyway, that company that is bankrupt was owned by the local government and Omega is owned by the local fgovernment as well. Initially it was only Formula Sochi and in the budget of GP were colossal losses (by design). They were supposed to be covered by the non-budget money. So local government 'bought' Omega and put big deal of money into that company, so that company finances GP by 'non budget' money. in reality Omega works via Cyprus (he-he) by using one of the Russian construction companies registered there and owned by Putin's friends.

in numbers - local government paid about 20,000,000,000.00 roubles for shares in Omega ($1=about 28roubles, so you can calculate). Official input of the government into GP - about 5,000,000,000 roubles and another 2 to be paid by 'private investors'

I wouldn't pay much attention to those news. it is all about shifting huge amount of money and covering tracks. I am sure that Russia will organise GP just to prove in a stile 'we can' and making rich richer in the process